digitalrevolution blog

A Belated Black And White Christmas

2011-03-13T20:25:00.005Z

Starting to clear the backlog and start up my blog again - concentrating on my photography these days. This little lot are from a visit to the Metrocentre to take a few shots around at the Christmas decorations.

Trying to be creative with Christmas decorations and in b&w walking around a shopping mall....it was, well fun. I've done this long enough now to ignore or even laugh at the strange looks you get - sometimes even take photos lol.

So, here you go, a sample of black and white Christmas decorations in our Gateshead Metrocentre:

Ok, this is one is not a Christmas decoration....but you can't ignore Betty now can you? :D

And then there's always time for a cosplay shot,

Oh Hellovabacklog!!!

2010-11-28T15:52:00.000Z

Here's me sitting wondering what to do, forgetting I have a blog sitting there rotting in the state of non-updatedness. Only reminded of this fact due to looking at a friends blog - "hmm, blogger, that reminds me...." as the thought train goes.

Yes, indeed, a backlog of stuff going on in photography and life - this is what happens now I'm back in work, no time or can't be bothered lol. Here's holding a glass to getting the act together :)

So continuing my journey through photography unto greatness (guffaw and a giggle) I've changed and what with more cosplay shenanigans and a venture into the inevitable dabbling in the world of models and various trips to try and hone some styles, I'm coming along.

I must say I love the dark side, no, not just that side of photography but the Black and White. I have dabbled, but I am becoming more and more engrossed in using it instead of colour and love it's possibilities - especially with models and fine art photography, this being an early attempt

Then there is Street Portraiture, which I think B&W is great for, as below, some of my favourite shots from a few trips - more to work on with B&W from me.

Stay tuned, more to come of the backlog :)

ttfn

Documenting An Eventful Saturdays Togging

2009-07-20T21:11:00.001+01:00

Saturday (the 18th of July) just gone was one busy and fun day, strengthening contacts and making a load of new ones. Initially it was the day of Scott Kelby's Worldwide Photo Walk - second annual that is - which I was taking part in by joining the Newcastle Upon Tyne contingent of the event along with Dave my usual tog buddy.

We, being people that want to fit as much as we can into a days photography, decided also to get in some more shots and become more known amongst the North East Cosplayers who were doing gay pride in their own way (see below).

These guys are hilarious and we were able to spot Wally from "Where's Wally" outside the station.

We followed as they marched on their well trodden path around the anime shops with their gay pride banner.

The Photo Walk

Leaving the cosplayers to do their stuff, we headed to the quayside for the meet passing some buskers who were pretty good and took a snap - they posed too while playing :D

Hard to think of different ways to take photos of a subject like the quayside that you have done times before, I ventured for the abstract mostly...

...which seems to work as "different" plus a bonus on the Millennium Bridge opening up to let a boat through.

I didn't take much else of worthiness from that point, sky was awful spoiling shots and to be honest I'd done the quayside before but happy with the few I did get. The group ventured onto the Gateshead side and the Sage which I hadn't been in before, so another bonus.

Then tried something really abstract in the Baltic Art Gallery entrance (and yes I know, it's not straight because I took it at an angle on purpose).

And we came to the end of the Photo Walk event and people went their ways. A great day and great to see new faces and meet new photographers - and not just from this area as a couple had come down from Glasgow.

...But Our Photo Walk Continued...

I had some experimentation with a sinister looking underpass shot (and yes that's Dave, he's the sinister bit :D)...

...investigated a graveyard...

...found an alien on a wall...

...and finally a space invader to finish the day.

Can't wait for the next one, let's hope this one is as successful as last years or more and gets into the record books.

Orkestra Del Sol

2009-07-13T10:33:00.001+01:00

Orkestra Del Sol are a group I saw at the Mouth Of The Tyne Festival, they have a varied mix of influences from Russia and the Middle East to South America putting together with brass to create a unique performance. One of the best, if not the, of this type of musical performance I have seen and thoroughly enjoyed.

I am however slightly annoyed with myself, as with such great opportunity for photos I still haven't grasped the use of my manual focus lens and lost some potentially great shots due to what should be the main focus of the photo being out of focus. But one struggles on and to be fair to myself I did get some some really good shots considering I was shooting between heads and shoulders.

Mouth Of The Tyne Festival

2009-07-12T23:25:00.000+01:00

Partners in crime, Dave and I, went down to to Tynemouth or a look around the Mouth Of The Tyne Festival for some photo opportunities - and boy did we find.

I personally took over 450 shots, needless to say most were binnable, but with the set I came out with at the end it was well worth the effort. Of course the entertainment was great too.

Street Performances

Musical Performances

http://www.jimithepiper.co.uk/

http://www.chicagostompers.it/index-en.php

http://www.orkestradelsol.co.uk/

I didn't really know what was going on with the street performers - but they provided some good photo opportunities. I was into the music though and bought Orkestra Del Sol's CD (which is unlike me at festivals :D), but Chicago Stompers and Jimi & Sam were also great. Unfortunately I wasn't around long enough to take in the other two jazz bands but maybe I'll see them some other time.

A Saturday Spent With Cosplayers

2009-07-07T23:19:00.003+01:00

Cosplay - short for "costume roleplay", participants dress up in outfits that portray a specific character usually from various Japanese manga, anime, comic books and fantasy movies.

As just by chance, a week ago, the last of a cosplayers meet were in Newcastle station. A great spectacle and opportunity for photographs they were more than happy jumping into poses naturally for some shots.

They also also invited us to along with them on their meet this weekend gone in Newcastle, with opportunity for more cosplayers and opportunity for a greater set of photographs. We, me and my friend Dave over at Deliciously Dave, gladly obliged the opportunity to get them some event photographs for their sites and thoroughly enjoyed the day as a welcome experience shananigans a plenty worthy of documenting.

The group on the day

Some of my favourite shots from the day

An interesting part of culture to be around, a fun group of folks who meet to enjoy the company of like minded people. Not all that different from us togs to be honest, meet up for company, a laugh, food and share an interest.

The people we met up with have various sites themselves, listed below, so if you are interested check them out.

North East Cosplayers specific links

North East Cosplayers - Deviant Art
North East Cosplayers - Myspace

Related links

Anime League

Newcastle Upon Tyne

2009-07-02T08:49:00.001+01:00

I love Newcastle for many things, and photography is one of them. No matter how many times I go with the camera, thinking that I've taken everything possible, I always end up finding new angles and things I hadn't thought of - I'm guessing it's all down to who you shoot with, go lone shooting and your ideas are limited but in a small group or with a buddy ideas bounce around.

Some Newcastle shots to date, no doubt there will be more attempts :)

Street Life

Tyne And Sage

Crossing Lines - Millennium Bridge

Grainger Market

Swing Bridge

Looking Down River

Old Rope

Marsden Rock And Bay, South Tyneside - Part 2

2009-07-01T22:14:00.001+01:00

Marsden Bay photos continued.

Marsden Rock And Bay, South Tyneside - Part 1

2009-06-30T23:46:00.001+01:00

My first visit and exploration at Marsden Bay in South Shields, South Tyneside. A great beach and cliff face along with Marsden Rock for photographs - and as I love the coast I was in my element.

More to follow from this set - taking a while to sift through them all.

Marsden Rock Links:

Marsden Rock And Bay
Marsden Bay Wiki

Putting Sunderland On The Digital Map

2009-06-27T11:38:00.001+01:00

More photographs from around Sunderland, my home city.

Roker Harbour

River Wear

Beach

Cemetery

Penshaw Monument

My First Studio Photo Shoot Experience

2009-06-27T10:31:00.001+01:00

Trying to get a model to work with you I found is the hardest thing, luckily Kershia here was kind enough to let me at her with a camera to get some shots for her portfolio. To be quite honest I am unsure as to whether I had much success at the kind of thing she wanted in her portfolio, but there are a few I like which is good from a shoot of 360 odd photographs.

Here's some I'd like to say I'm pleased with.

Kershia Studio Shoot - June 09

Rainton Meadows - April 09

2009-06-15T11:40:00.001+01:00

Rainton Meadows is a Nature Reserve in Houghton-le-Spring, Sunderland near Durham. Lovely place to wander around on a summers day with some good photo opportunities on wildlife and scenery.

Reflection

Tranquil Waters

The Wall

Joe's Pond

Admittedly not much wildlife, I hope to catch a lot more on my next visit, but I enjoyed exploring and the the exercise.

Rainton Meadows and Joe's Pond

York Jun 09

2009-06-14T16:12:00.001+01:00

Meeting friends and chilling was great on such a fabulous sunny day. Here's a few shots from around York and some candids.

The Touristy Shots

The Candids

Some Local Shots

2009-06-13T22:33:00.001+01:00

Newcastle Bridges

Newcastle Keep

Roker Harbour & River Wear

Wear Docks

Digging Up Old Photos

2009-06-12T20:59:00.001+01:00

Logging Photography trips starting back to beginning of 2009. To start off here's some from my visit to Sycamore Gap and Lake Crag Lough in Northumberland in January. to see the photos bigger, click the photo and it will take you to the flickr page.

Robin Hoods Tree

Sycamore Gap and Robin Hoods Tree

Farmhouse Beside Lake Crag Lough

The Northumberland Countryside

Free Magazine Findings

2009-03-30T12:22:00.001+01:00

As anyone does I scour the internet for useful and interesting things, information relating to my interests and hobbies one of the biggies. For the people that read magazines (me included) I guess one of the negative points is always going to be the price - it's amazing how much magazine pricing has shot up over the years.

Hope there free PDF magazine resources I've hunted out may be of interest to you folks out there in the net. I'll keep an eye out and update my findings every so often, but for now here's some interest to keep you going.

Creative/Art and Design Magazines

Root

Destructed

Photography

Apple Mac

Smoking Apples Magazine

Mac Companion Magazine

Simple CD Collection Cataloguing With InCDius

2009-03-30T11:37:00.001+01:00

InCDius is a searchable and scriptable Audio CD cataloguing application. InCDius works with freedb so once you insert a CD it will retrieve all the information for you automatically.

First of all to set things up is choose a freedb server near you, this is done via the preferences of the application like the screenshot below.

screenshot of lookup tab

When you have set that up and insert your first CD, the import pane will pop up and you will see the connection to server and retrieval of CD information displayed as below.

screenshot of imported CD information

On this pane you have the two other tabs to input extra information, like your rating of the album an your specific genre for the album.

Once you have imported your collection, you can view all the imported data via the CD Browser window and scroll through your entire library.

screenshot of CD Browser

There is also a CD Controller window which lets you play the Cd's without having to open iTunes so you can review the tunes and refresh your memory.

Firefox - Some Useful Integrations

2009-03-02T22:47:00.001Z

I'm always trying to find new functionality of Firefox's extensibility - admittedly uninstalling most of the add-ons through lack of need. However I really like the useful ones that just integrate.

Here's three new ones I'm using at the minute - might come in handy for you too.

Minimap Sidebar is a handy tool that can be used as a sidebar or in a tab, drag location or address into the Multimap page to make the map load or enter locations by typing it in. Also adds contextual menu item.

UrlbarExt adds commands to your location bar giving you the options to copy url, use tinyurl to shorten the url, tag pages, browse anonymously and search the site you're on.

Juice can act as a search sidebar for rich content and your google searches.

Opensource Alternative For Creatives

2009-03-02T21:46:00.002Z

In the current climate what better way to save money to make money than to employ open source free software as your creative tools.

Your alternative are as follows

For web design > NVU, a simple straightforward WYSIWYG editor for you web needs.

For animation > Synfig, 2D time-line animation creation tool.

For vector graphics creation > Inkscape, a vector graphics application similar to Illustrator and CorelDraw.

For page layout > Scribus, open source professional page layout design application.

For multimedia design > Libavg, create media rich interactive presentations akin to Director.

For video editing > Avidmux, video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding supporting many file types.

For adding video effects > Jahshaka, edit and add visual effects like After Effects.

I just made my Thunderbird experience better.....and more useful

2009-02-20T15:02:00.001Z

I have been using Mozilla Thunderbird for some time and found it quite sufficient in what it does never needing to or wanting to take it beyond it's construct.

Recently I started to use a calendar application but discovered Lightning, a Thunderbird add-on bringing the features of Mozilla Sunbird calendar application into the same application as your email.

A couple of other add-on discoveries in ThunderBrowse and the Sender Verification Anti-Phishing Extension installed and behold the new found usefulness, well at least all the usefulness I need for now.

And for one last thing I added some aesthetics in the Azerty 'mail 3.0 theme, and I'm now quite a bit more happy with new look Thunderbird application.

Ho hum, carry on. :)

Tools For Making Things Easy, Basic Maintenance & Those More Technical Things On osx

2009-02-01T21:20:00.001Z

Here's something someone mentioned to me, really useful tools and utilities for your mac - the kind of things that keep your machine ship shape, easy to use and dig you out of a hole when everything goes pear shaped - or indeed preventing things from going pear shaped.

The Basic "Must-Have"

Quicksilver - Total ease of use, it's not just an app launcher check out the documention.

Growl - System wide notification, hardware and applications integration.

MainMenu - System maintenance application that sits in your notification area in finder. One click batch task performance or just do what you need to do.

Something Useful

MuCommander - Old style file manager application like Norton Commander with a wealth of features.

System Monitoring

Geektool - Display system logs, Unix commands output, images from your hard drive as well as from the internet.

Basleline - Baseline disk analyser.

Disk Inventory X - Disk usage monitoring tool.

Something More Technical

IceClean - Unix based system maintenance toolset to help keep your mac running smoothly.

Carbon Copy Cloner - Clone syncronise and backup your drives.

Internet Findings: IT Pros and IT Certification Resources

2009-02-01T00:08:00.001Z

With the likely event these will prove useful to other folks out there like myself, I'd like to share some findings from searching around the internet on IT Certification.

Technical Information

TechNet - Direct from Microsoft archives.

Windows Security - Security articles and forums on Windows Security.

Windows Networking - Networking articles and technical information relating to Windows.

MCP Magazine - Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine, articles by IT Professionals.

Redmond Magazine - An It Professional lead magazine.

Training Information and Certification Resources

Global Knowledge - Certification and training information.

ProProfs - IT Certification preparation resources.

CramSession - Study guides and certification exams.

PrepLogic - Practice certification exams.

Oh, The Joys Of Camera Bag Shopping....

2008-12-31T11:30:00.001Z

With advent of a new lens for Christmas I needed a new camera bag for the purpose of...well, what you normally do with a bag :D I like carrying my stuff in a back pack, so there it was, go for a backpack camera bag and one that will hold plenty of stuff and lenses should I get them in the future - and no doubting about it, I will.

A second thought came into my head, yeah ok I want a backpack to hold my camera gear but what if I needed to take my laptop with me? I'd need two backpacks! Not that I will carry it with me all the time, just if needs be. To the internet I go - a wonderful wealth of information and views on camera bags from people in the know on makes and styles and uses, etc - and so many there was.

I whittled it down to two makes of back and a few different backpacks, but I wanted to see, feel and try them before buying. On the highstreet there aren't many places to go except your local camera stoe of which I only have one here in Sunderland an that is Charles Eagles, who's staff are really helpful in not just service and sales, but unfortunately they had nothing in that really suited what I was looking for - I don't count Jessops as a local store, besides they are pretty unhelpful and have limited stock to look at.

All I could find after a wonder through Newcastle too were Lowepro bags amongst a two other brands, but Lowepro have some real goo sturdy backpacks and I found the perfect one for outdoors, waterproof, it's own little rain coat, fits my laptop and also fits my tripod to it which is a bonus.

The backpack to fill my needs was the Vertex 100 AW and it's fit for a full days Photography and will hold your filters, extra batteries, memory cards, cleaning gear and upto 5 lenses as well as a laptop which I mentioned, pretty darn cool I reckon.

There you go, I'm swayed, if you need a good camera bag Lowepro certainly have some damn good reasons to look at theirs.

A Happy Christmas For My Mac

2008-12-27T10:32:00.001Z

Thank you Macheist for giving us these great gifts for Christmas via the Givingtree. A wonderful array of applications and games including Synergy, Enigmo 2 and 1Password amongst others adding up to 8 gifts in all.

Merry Christmas Everyone

2008-12-24T09:54:00.001Z

Here's wishing you all a very happy Festive period and best wishes for the New Year.

Enjoy and be Merry, don't y'all get too drunk :)

Best Regards

Ian

Microsoft Certification and Windows Vista

2008-12-19T11:15:00.002Z

A Mac user doing Microsoft qualifications you say? Well, yes and aiming high for a new career - bout time I started this blog up again.

So, if you hadn't guessed, I've been gaining myself some further professional education and it's something new to get my teeth sunk into. In an attempt to aid me (which it did) I invested in a high end box of chips and electronics with Windows Vista on it - I find that with all the hoo har going on about it being no good "XP was better" and "it's just copied from Leopard" well I just like it, maybe because of the new learning maybe because of it being something new.

I has opened up my interest in Freeware and Open Source again on the Windows side of the coin, which to be honest I am quite impressed with the quality of - considering I was totally bowled over with the quality and depth of Mac Freeware and branded Windows alternatives as poor in comparison.

Above all of the system maintenance freeware that i put on here (Vista machine) the one that most impressed me (and this may seem daft) is Launchy for the one sole reason of what it is and does, which is act like Quicksiler on my Mac.

Estetica Designer Bloggers Interviews

2008-04-12T14:45:00.002+01:00

As per my last post Estetica Design Bloggers Q & A - the Interviews went ahead, and here is my interview with multi talented multimedia designer Aaron Russell over at www.aaronrussell.co.uk.

I sent my interview questions over to Aaron Thursday evening and he came back with these great in depth answers for me, thanks Aaron;

You pretty much cover all the bases with your services, what inspired you to get into the creative industry in the first place?

A few years ago I had a job in marketing where I spent the vast majority of my time producing print based marketing materials, brochures, magazines and that kind of thing. I really enjoyed the creative element of the job and every day I was working alongside designers from various agencies. It soon became clear to me that I wanted to work on 'the other side' - be the designer - so I retrained and made it happen.

On your blog you say you've been doing websites for quite some time, what made you move into the graphic design too?

I taught myself HTML in 1997, but at this point it was nothing more than a geeky hobby - I certainly couldn't 'design'. When I retrained I studied Multimedia Design which by its nature is diverse and covers many design-based disciplines. I think the design industry crosses over with itself a lot and once you have learnt the fundamentals of design you can apply that knowledge to many different niches of design. I've had a lot of experience producing print-based projects so it makes sense that I offer that experience to my clients now.

Your portfolio is pretty impressive, what is it you find most self gratifying about the web work, the development, the design or just seeing another piece of good work role out?

I love the diversity of what I do. I recently have completed a Facebook application which was a very technical job. Learning how to use the Facebook API presented a very steep learning curve, and for a solid week I did nothing but look at code. After wrapping that job up my next job was a 12 page glossy brochure - no code involved. I get to get my notepad out and scribble little sketches, spend hours playing with colours and images, and be very creative.

You got yourself into what sounds like a pretty high brow brand and marketing job, you must have been there a while to get to that position - did you enjoy your time there?

I worked for three years in that role and I absolutely thoroughly loved it. Before I started that role I would never use those words to describe any job I had - at the time in my early twenties I didn't really know what I wanted to do for a living or what kind of job I wanted. I actually stumbled into marketing by luck more than anything else, but three years later I had retrained, knew exactly what I wanted to do and was set on the path that has taken me to where I am today.

What was your motivation in choosing to go the freelance route?

It's always been a dream of mine to work for myself and support myself. I still take on short-term permanent contracts to subsidise my freelance activities - effectively working two jobs at once, but my aim is to take the plunge as a full time freelancer before I'm 30. Which doesn't give me long, but I'm on track.

How are you finding the transition, any major setbacks?

No setbacks as such, but I do find the work-flow can be very much boom or bust. Typically I'll have more jobs on than I can handle for a couple of months and be working every hour that God gives me, then the next month I'll be sat around scratching my head wondering where all the work is.

If you were advising a colleague, what tips would you give in building up a client base?

Networking, friends, families and referrals. The vast majority of freelance jobs that I take on are the result of someone I know telling someone else about me, or a previous client referring me.

You must have difficult client stories, care to share any?

If you advertise your services online via your website, you are opening yourself up to enquiries from all sorts of weird and wonderful people from all four corners of the globe. People who want you to work for free, people who want you to complete unrealistically complex projects for a hundred dollars, scammers , or just nutters. When you are starting out as a freelancer it can be tempting to treat every enquiry as a serious potential job but this will eventually result in horror stories. Over time you learn to spot which enquiries are worth a polite "thanks but no thanks".

What was behind your decision to become a blogger?

I first started blogging in February 2007, more out of a geeky curiosity of what it was all about than anything else. I soon realised that it is a fantastic way to network with other designers, learn from others and share what you have learnt, build and develop your online profile and 'authority', and ultimately promote your freelance activities.

When it comes to blowing off steam, what's your sure fire way of giving yourself some "off time"?

When I was a bit younger I used to be a DJ and so I still have a deep passion for music. These days though I've traded in being young and trendy for being a workaholic. I don't really have "off time". I do like to get away every now and again though and take frequent holidays with my girlfriend.

Estetica Design Bloggers Q & A

2008-04-11T14:56:00.001+01:00

Some of guys on estetica (including one's self) are doing a combined blog post at the graphic design blog on the subject of our ourselves, our blogs and our careers in design. Those taking part are interviewing each other so we can find out a bit more about each other and what we do.

The point of interest being any design/print related tips or advice that may be available from the interviews for our readers - be sure to watch out for my interview and the interview of my interviewee which i'll be posting when we get the information together.

For a further look into what we are all about take a look at some of the blogs taking part;

me

caroline murphy's design blog

estetica graphic design blog

the creativecurio blog

the graphic identity blog

crazyleaf design blog

just creative design blog

aaron russell's blog

New Month, New Ambition Flurishes

2008-02-05T21:19:00.001Z

So here we are in February then, and welcome pack ordered from Microsoft coming in a few weeks. Next exam booked for the 13th, so i'm cramming to get a good pass mark for gaining my MCDST qualification and also signed on board for the Vista Client course coming up to further extend my horizons and interest in IT as a career.

Don't want to look too far ahead at the moment, but I am quite interested in the Server Administration that the Vista course points to - hope I can work my way there with these qualifications I'm gaining. It's a million miles away from a career in design that I had wanted (at least though I did), but never the less interesting and I'm quite enthusiastic about getting back into work in a new arena of the IT industry.

A related topic which also got me interested in wanting to have a play was this little app for mac osx 10.4 called Sandbox. Which brings to 10.4 the possible use of ACL or Access Control Lists that are not un-akin to the NTFS and/or share permissions of Windows XP - usually only available in OSX Server. I would like to get to grips with Mac Support and Administration at some point, so this might be worth a look into.

Some nice - "free to go so far" then option to pay games

2008-01-30T15:33:00.001Z

Midnight Mansion

Awesome return to classic retro 2D side scrolling platformers.

Titan Attacks

Space Invaders rule! :D

Argonaut

Nice take on the Asteroids game.

Rocochet

Really nice Breakout/Arkanoid style game with a twist.

Freeware OSX Applications For Accounting

2008-01-30T15:19:00.001Z

Save money and try these of instead of the likes of Quickbooks.

Balance

Track your finances, whether it be stock investments or a credit card transaction. Then chart them according to the categories you define.

Buddi

Buddi is a personal finance and budgeting program, aimed at those who have little or no financial background.

Burn

Catalogue the cost of life. With Burn, you can track the cost of your road trip, figure out your weekly coffee bill, and ensure you don't exceed your monthly budget.

CashBox

Cashbox is a personal finance applicaiton for Mac OS X.

iCompta

iCompta is an application that lets you manage your personal accounts with ease.

Luca

Luca is a full-featured, fully-functional, accrual-based accounting system that runs on OS X. It has the ability to handle real-time double-entry postings and multiple currencies...

Mini Money

A miniature sized money manager that features simplicity and power in a small package.

SpendThrift

A personal-finance manager focused on speed and ease of use. There’s no setup, no maintenance, no tediousness, no cause to fall out of the habit of using it, and no waking up to find a huge discrepancy with one’s checking account.

Time For A Change.....Hopefully For The Good :)

2008-01-19T22:40:00.001Z

Moving away from the creative stuff and trying to start a new career, been doing a Microsoft course to get qualifications as in Desktop Support (not gonna get rid of the apple macs though eh ;)). Just went in there and took the first exam on friday, and passed too - so I have the Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) qualification now - a lot of revision content and possibly some I didn't get too before the exam, and to be honest probably wouldn't have been able to take it in without forgetting what i'd already revised.

Over and done with now - onto the next exam soon and the Desktop Support Technician (MCDST) qualification, so I guess that may be another website re-design then to something focusing on my photography maybe as I'm getting my first DSLR to play with, yay! :D

Recommended OSX Freeware List (Continued)

2007-12-06T10:36:00.000Z

Games

SuperTux

go back to the classic 2D scrolling platform adventures with this addictive game.

Freeciv

A port of the classic Civilization game.

Battle For Wesnoth

An epic RPG, very extensive with add-on scenarios and ability to create your own.

Head Over Heels

A classic from way back, now reborn on the Mac.

Blackjack International

Great casino card game - pit your wits against the the dealer and four other AI players.

Otis

Addictive puzzle game.

Quinn

Tetris on your Mac.

Dinky Dungeon

Adventure RPG game.

Transport Tycoon

The classic game brought to osx.

Open Arena

Game based on Quake 3 engine.

JSokoban

The classic Mac puzzle game.

Quackle

Play scrabble against AI opponent.

GeoParty

Trivia game in the style of Double Jeopardy

Spell-O-Gram

something for the kids - help them with their spelling.

JewelToy

An interesting and enjoyable puzzle game.

Obviously there are a load more I could have listed, these are just the ones I have been interested in enough to download and play.

Raquel Aparicio Portfolio

2007-11-30T10:29:00.000Z

Really gorgeous work here by Raquel

Raquel Aparicio's Portfolio

Retro Sci-Fi

2007-11-28T22:41:00.001Z

over at darkroastedblend.com is a great article on retro visions of space.

pretty awesome how we imagined space, and such great depictions.

head over and take a look - Retro-Future: To The Stars!

Iman Maleki Paintings

2007-11-28T21:52:00.001Z

Iman Maleki

Recommended OSX Freeware List (Continued)

2007-11-25T20:09:00.000Z

CD/DVD burning

LiquidCD - LiquidCD is a freeware for burning CDs and DVDs built for Mac OS X. But LiquidCD is more than a burning software and has useful built-in features.

SimplyBurns - simple and straightforward burning.

addition to Communication

Psi - Psi is a free instant messaging application designed for the Jabber IM network (including Google Talk).

additional Network Tools

CoconutWiFi - WiFi network detection.

OSXvnc - Freeware VNC server.

Chicken Of The VNC - VNC Client.

Text Editors

Textwrangler - General purpose, powerful text editor.

Screen Capture

InstantShot - Sits in your menu bar adding extra screen capture features than the inbuilt ones.

SnapnDrag - Screen capture made easy.

additional Miscellaneous Utilities

UnRarX - Simple RAR extraction utility.

Firefox Extensions That Should Be Part Of Firefox

2007-11-25T11:04:00.000Z

Firefox is great, the best browser I've used standalone say for maybe opera, the possibilities with extensions has made firefox a necessity for me. The following extensions add so much functionality that they would hopefully be included one day in the browser itself, significant enough to want yet small changes and additions that when added you may wonder how you did without them.

All-In-One Gestures

I admit I don't use this, but to some it's a great feature add on making browsing simpler to those who can grasp this concept unlike myself :) it's worth trying out.

All-In-One Sidebar

This is a fantastic add-on that would simply make life easier in firefox.

Download Manager Tweak

Adds more functionality to the download manager window, also allows you to open it in the sidebar.

Download Status Bar

A feature from Opera so you can see the progress of your download imediately without having to find the download window.

Fasterfox

Well, this just simply tweaks and speeds up Firefox - a must.

Fire FTP

Builds into Firefox a great FTP application/Add-on.

Foxmarks Synchroniser

Synchronise your bookmarks between your computers, a very handy feature if you are taking your laptop away.

Options Menu

Adds a menu item in the tools menu that allows quick access to the preferences and options of your installed extensions and add-ons.

PDF Download

Gives you options on how to view pdfs or download them directly.

Restart Firefox

Adds "Restart Firefox" to the file menu.

Session Manager

Manage your browsing sessions with ease, and get crash recovery to automatically restore your pages on reopening firefox after a crash.

Xippee Firefox Extension

Help with your search results - add or remove words to your search criteria.

Recommended OSX Freeware List

2007-11-23T10:59:00.000Z

App Launcher/Keyboard Interface

Quicksilver - An extensive tools that integrates into your system, from it's simplest level of an application launcher, using the keyboard interface Quicksilver can be so much more.

Back-Up Utilities

SuperDuper - Back up and clone your drives with this great tool

iBackup - A simple backup and restore utility, supports scheduled backups of files, folders and applications.

Browsers

Firefox - A top browser, now going into version 3 which is reportedly faster and a better performer all round - my personal browser of choice.

Opera - A most worthy browser that is to a lot of peoples liking, and have to admit i like most of it's features too.

Communication

Adium - The best multi account instant messenger including jabber and gtalk amongst the regulars along with many more.

FTP

Cyberduck - The best and easiest in use of ftp clients for osx.

Maintenance

AppDelete - Saves you going around deleting everything manually.

IceClean - A powerful general maintenance application bringing you the power of UNIX - akin to the likes of TechTool, a worthy addition to your arsenal it WILL come in handy.

MainMenu - Handy menu bar maintenance app to save you the time and effort.

MS Office Alternative

NeoOffice and OpenOffice - Essentially the same suite, this is your chance to say goodbye to MS Office and save yourself the money and hassle - NeoOffice is a little better at the moment as OpenOffice is just becoming OSX native.

Network Tools

Bwanadik - I only recently discovered this one, menubar app creating a shortcut to most of your network preferences, most notably displays your connections and external/local IP addresses.

iStumbler - Wireless discovery app, find those wi-fi hotspots, bluetooth devices and bonjour services.

Photography

JetPhoto Studio - This is one awesome app, photo library, image correction, flickr uploader and photo web gallery creater all in one - option to upgrade to Pro version.

RSS Readers

Vienna - RSS reader with some nice features, including growl integration, menubar icon, tabbed viewing of articles/subscriptions along with a few others.

Miscellaneous Utilities

Calq - On demand calculator, activate with keypress do your calculation and then it hides until needed again.

Desktop Manager - If you have machines that are not compatible with Leopard and you want virtual desktops, then look no further, the site says it is alpha quality but it works perfectly well and I use it on 10.4.11 - still going strong here :)

Growl - System notifications preference pane add on, plugs into an array of applications and system areas letting you know what is happening - including firefox, quicksilver, adium, mainmenu and vienna.

MagiCal - Handy menubar calendar and clock app.

Password Gorilla - Registrations and logins manager.

PTHPasteboard - Useful Utility that keeps a record of your pasteboard handy.

Endorse Open Source

2007-10-26T16:53:00.001+01:00

Ok, so i don't usually do business stuff but this article got my attention (see below) and is a good note to businesses to be wary of a few issues with microsoft. Personally, with there being so much variety of good open source and freeware/shareware software around, if I was running or starting up a business that's definitely the way i would go especially with application software that is.

Anyway, to the point, here is the article;

Rockin' on without Microsoft

The 22 Worst Place Names in the World

2007-10-24T16:06:00.001+01:00

Article here

As for the English ones, well, what can i say - shitterton??! I had no idea except for Gravesend, which lets be honest, pretty tame.

More....

2007-10-24T15:45:00.001+01:00

Awesome Photography, that is :)

More here

Awesome Photography

2007-10-24T12:47:00.001+01:00

this looks soooo great, like i just want to go and lose myself

great photos here http://artjob.ru/2007/09/04/krasota_v_sele_ot_duni.html

Open Source Alternatives You Might Be Interested In

2007-10-07T22:27:00.001+01:00

Jahshaka - open source, hardware accelerate editing and effects system. dowloads

Avidemux is a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks.

OpenLaszlo is an open source platform for creating zero-install web applications with the user interface capabilities of desktop client software.

Ardour is a digital audio workstation. You can use it to record, edit and mix multi-track audio. You can produce your own CDs, mix video soundtracks, or just experiment with new ideas about music and sound.

Just thought I'd share with y'all :)

My Recommended Resources For Freeware On Your Mac

2007-10-05T16:16:00.001+01:00

To all you mac users out there I (as a mac user myself), though I'd post for you a few great sites for getting your hands on the best freeware and opensource software - the best resources I have come across all in one post, so here you go.

The Best Sites for OSX Freeware and OpenSource

Cool OSX Apps - One of (if not THE) best mac blogs for freeware and shareware along with some commercial stuff now and again

FreeMacWare - Another great source for all things free software, also has other good sections to the site like FreeMacPhoto

I Use This - A comprehensive software listing of what's new in all areas of software - site depends on entries from users also, create an account add apps that aren't there and keep track of all the apps you use on your mac.

Best Mac Software - A good selection of the essential software you would want for your mac - freeware and opensource of course

The Free Mac Classroom - An extensive list of freeware and opensource software for your mac, aimed at (as the title suggests) students who need software on the cheap, it is also a greatly valuable source for all the rest of us mac users too as it lists software most would not think available. The list isn't exhaustive at all, so if you know of some freeware that could be usefull in the workplace, classroom or other you can let the author know of them so they can be made available to other users.

Also worthy of a mention are;

Mohawke's Best Of The Best - another comprehensive site with not only mac freeware and opensoure but a windows list too along with a couple others, worth checking out - some software may be obsolete or changed name but this is a good resource.

Downloadpedia specifically sections Best Mac Software and Open Source Mac. This also has Linux and Windows section along with Firefox and Thhunderbird add-on sections.

Other Resources - These are mixed resources, mac, windows and online

Open Source God | Mashable - 480+ Opensource applications and resources.

Free and Open Source Software Directory - Webi - Categorized opensource software applications and games.

45 Best Freeware Design Programs

Well, there you go, enjoy!

Animals Are Great

2007-10-04T22:57:00.001+01:00

Awesome animal photos

Rest In Peace Bob Wood

2007-08-20T11:36:00.001+01:00

It is odd how this affects me, as he was and online acquaintance and i didn't know him that well, but on visiting the Mac OSX forum after an absence of a few month and coming face to face with the sad news that Bob Wood aka bobw had passed away, i was deeply saddened.

about Bob

It is with much sadness to inform you that Bob Wood (aka Bobw) passed away in his home last night. His son informed me of the news, and said that he was found sitting in front of his Mac, he died doing what he loved most.

Bob was a retired business owner, who spent time helping people with their computers. Bob's contribution will be sorely missed at Macosx.com, as his contribution to this site went unmatched. Back in 1997, Bob Wood joined up as a volunteer on No Wonder. Bob went on to answering the most Mac questions of anyone on the volunteer team that numbered around 1000 people and even more. In fact, he had answered several thousand more personal support questions than the next runner up. After No Wonder's acquisition, Bob stayed on board under the new ownership and continued to help out. He later came and joined Macosx.com, and has been an invaluable asset to this site. In true Bob fashion, he out-shined everyone and has answered thousands of questions here at Macosx.com in the personal support area, not including all the help and support he provided in the forums.

as i say, i didn't know him that well and we hadn't chatted on AIM for quite a while, which saddens me the most, my condolences go out to his family

Rest In Peace Bob

Fantasy Art

2007-08-10T22:23:00.001+01:00

Awesome stuff - love this

Unbelievable Sculptures

2007-07-15T14:23:00.001+01:00

Cool stuff these...

...I love this one

Unbelievable Sculptures

Film Critic - Movie Quiz

2007-07-15T11:01:00.001+01:00

Interesting quiz - i should see more movies :)

66%

FilmCritic.com - Movie Reviews

A Lovely Piece Of Art

2007-07-13T23:25:00.001+01:00

10 Most Dangerous Toys of All Time!

2007-07-04T10:13:00.001+01:00

dangerous indeed - canons? radioactive? lawn darts? :o

read more | digg story

Jacek Yerka - Polish Contemporary Artist

2007-07-04T09:49:00.001+01:00

I really love this guys surreal art, the colours, imagery and feeling in there are fantastic

more images

Ultimate HTML Color HEX Code List

2007-07-03T15:42:00.001+01:00

What a great list - i'm liking the tints these things really come in handy :)

read more | digg story

Abyss Web Server X1 - Free Download

2007-06-30T16:16:00.001+01:00

Abyss Web Server enables you to host your Web sites on your computer. It supports a wide range of Web technologies and can run advanced PHP, Perl, Python, ASP, ASP.NET, and Ruby on Rails Web applications which can be backed by databases such as MySQL, SQLite, MS SQL Server, MS Access, or Oracle.

Abyss Web Server X1 is a free and fully functional software: no nag screens, no time limitations, no spyware, and no advertisements. It is the ideal web server software for personal users, web developers, students, small businesses and home offices. Download your copy today and join the tens of thousands of people who have been using it daily since 2002.

Homepage

Download

Flow - Private Beta

2007-06-28T09:52:00.001+01:00

Workflow Management app for osx offers an early look into it's features

Flow isn't like the rest. We've taken the time to understand how people want to work. We've taken the time to take those paradigms, and apply them in an intuitive and natural user-interface. We've looked at what makes great software great, and we've used those methodologies in ways like never before. We've gone the extra mile, and added support for nearly every remote-protocol you could posibly want. But we know more than what to add — we also know what to leave out. Flow doesn't get in your way — in fact, when Flow was just a drawing on a whiteboard, the first words written were "streamlined workflow." That's why we call it Flow.

Head over to Flow website to sign up for the beta test

The Simpsons and Futurama Anime

2007-06-27T17:14:00.001+01:00

These anime impressionism illustration of the two cartoon shows look real cool, i'm liking the simpsons one more than the futurama one - mainly because it id depicts them differently which I think is more realistic than the show to be honest

read more | digg story

CD Hole Art: One Reason To Buy A CD

2007-06-27T16:53:00.001+01:00

It would be worth buying a cd with art like this, well I buy cd's anyway for the aesthetic value and stuff that goes with a cd but these hole art nes are really cool

article on Trend Squad

Bottle Shooter

2007-06-24T23:02:00.001+01:00

Have a go at this game, how quick are your reflexes? :)

Click to Play!

Blogging From Firefox With ScribeFire

2007-06-23T13:49:00.001+01:00

Testing, 1, 2, 3 :) Hehe, just discovering ScribeFire blogging ad-on for Firefox and it's looking pretty good - does what it says on the tin and all that. Easy to set up and it keeps your history of posts - to a point anyway, came in with my last 8 posts when it logged in.

There is also a feature to search technorati and one to log into del.icio.us which I can't seem to get to do anything on the log-in panel at the moment, oh well - persistence is the key I think.

Web 2.0, pffftt

2007-06-22T10:34:00.000+01:00

Ok, Web 2.0 is one thing - a term for a new evolution in the internet, great that's fine even if it is such a corny and cr*p phrase. But jees people, what's all the hype about "web 2.0" graphics? First of all i'd like to know who said "with this new evolution of internet technology, you must create amaturish, crapy, gradient styled graphics for your web page design"?

I really do hate them, I probably couldn't create one due to my own moral ethics and just get sick of seeing all these "how to create web 2.0 graphics" tutorials all over the web. But eventually this epidemic will lead to these things all over websites - i don't think i can cope, hopefully it's a passing phase - a quick one please god - and much like we have archaic old site designs that still remain in hidden dark corners of the internet, ones filled with flashy and twirly things all over them, we'll have onesfull of web 2.0 graphics lurking along side them.

I'll probably be jumped upon for these comments by the "we love web 2.0 graphics" fan club, but hey stop acting like a flock of sheep. The recent advances in the internet technologies is great, people can do so much more with sites but who said we need a style guide for them?

eyeOS 1.0 Dahlia

2007-06-17T15:39:00.001+01:00

eyeOS is an open-source web operating system which has the base aplications for office use, and to be honest it's really impressive. Taking the demo you get yor desktop, the menu at the top middle lets you open your applications - a wordprocessor, calendar, contacts and a file browser then there is a calculator, notepad and even a game of chess.

from the site

Welcome to eyeOS 1.0

You're about to discover a new concept of Open Source web Operating System, where you can customize your system to fit exactly your needs. Discover today the new eyeOS 1.0 with new basse applications, desktop, kernel, libraries and services!

Organize your processes

Optimize and manage your desktop with eyeProcess, the new Process Manager that will let you kill any process which has slowed your eyeOS experience or is working wrong!

Read more

Screenshots

Introductory Video

Take a look at the demo

This is definitely one awesome development for web resources, and one thing i found even more impressive is this:

You can browse the intenet from within in - I went to a few websites to check it out as you can see and it's pretty damn fast too.

SpaceTime™

2007-06-16T11:33:00.000+01:00

SpaceTime™ is an inovative new way to search the internet - in 3D. I stumbled across the website and something inside me went "ooooo", in it's current state you can search eBay, Google, Yahoo!, Flickr and do image search but it looks like they are making steady progress and on their site say "Coming Soon! Amazon, YouTube, Email, MySpace, Music, RSS, Live and Hundreds More!"

Only on windows platform currently but the mac version is coming soon too. Current features

3D eBay Search

3D Tabbed Browsing

3D Image Search

3D Web Search

Current minimum machine specs for running SpaceTime™ are:

Windows 2000, XP, Vista
512 MB of RAM
128 MB of video RAM
Pentium 4 2.4 GHz or AMD 2400xp+

For more information you can check out thier Community Forums

Main Site

Games

2007-06-15T15:00:00.000+01:00

SuperTux is a game I have played and left behind, but recently rediscovered the game with the latest release Milestone 1.9. If there's one type of game that I can get into it's retro games especially 2-D platform games, what can I say I just love em even if i die a multitude of times trying to get past one level :D

I also recently got Midnight Mansion which is another good 2-D retro platformer, like I said I'm a sucker for these, but having the same problems :D

Also worth a mention no doubt was this game I came across this morning called Barbie Seahorse Adventures. Barbie, I thought, surely not a game about Barbie but thank god no, you are a seahorse (ah, it all falls into place) wanting to go to the moon no less. I just have to get this game and play it :D

Desktoptwo - your free mobile home on the Internet

2007-06-13T21:05:00.000+01:00

Web technology developments are a great thing and moving at a fast pace recently, Desktoptwo seems like a pretty decent concept to me having just to log in and have your virtual computer desktop with essential basics apps there. Pretty nifty if you are away, just pop into an internet café and you're set.

Desktoptwo is a free web-based desktop or webtop (some call it a WebOS, although we feel that's a bit premature... for now) that mimics the look, feel and functionality of a local computer, all contained within one browser window and fully accessible from any Internet-connected device.

Read more...

Some of the features sound great for a free resource

Hard Drive Any file, any time, anywhere. 1GB Free!

Programs Office programs for reading documents on the fly. Collaborate with others

Those along with mp3, rss, mail, address book and others

Looks great

schmedley

2007-06-12T19:53:00.000+01:00

schmedley

from the site:

startpage - schmartpage.

schmedley is so much more than that. The Web 2.0 world is overrun with “startpages” that are filled with handy little items called widgets. Most of these widgets have limited functionality and don’t offer much more than an alternative door into content that is already easy to get elsewhere - like RSS news and blog feeds, etc.

rich internet applications

This is what schmedley is all about - we have embraced the web as a platform - to deploy a suite of web services applications that handle the most common, daily tasks of a broad range of internet users. Broken down by category, each application (schmedley “channel”) is represented by an icon in the schmedley toolbar at the top of every page. Each channel offers data that is diverse and sometimes hard to get at, and organizes it into one clean, easy-to-use interface. In many cases schmedley becomes a content provider, dedicated to offering an innovative way to carry out different web searches and perform specific tasks while gathering data from various sources. Even greater functionality is achieved by giving users the ability to store and manipulate personalized data relevant to each task at hand.

read more

main site

Social Networking

2007-06-12T13:27:00.001+01:00

So I'm not a big fan of social networking sites like myspace as a rule, that imparticular is the worst place oin the world to me and I avoid it like the plague. However a new social network has been started up over on the ning network called Mokkito which has a fresh and clean look about it, so I trooped on over and signed up to give it a whirl.

Mokkito

Also if you are in the neighbourhood the Graphic Design Network has been set up by the owner of the Graphic Design Forum

Graphic Design Network

It's all us at the moment so head on over and join Mokkito and if you are into design then come see us at Graphic Design Network too

VMware Fusion™ Beta

2007-06-08T12:19:00.000+01:00

VMware Fusion™

From the virtualization industry leader comes VMware Fusion. Simply the best way to run Windows, Linux, or Solaris at the same time as Mac OS X - without rebooting.

Built from the ground up for the Mac, VMware Fusion leverages nearly a decade of virtualization expertise to harness the full power of your Mac hardware, while still supporting Windows-only applications, USB 2.0 devices, 64-bit, and accelerated 3D graphics.

Looking very interesting indeed, when I get round to actually getting an intel mac I must try out these things. Itt says if you're already using boot camp it can access your boot camp partition and run it it as a virtual machine natively in osx, even use expose with it. S if you'd rather run virtul than reboot to get into windows tak a look at VMware Fusion™

Also, take a look at the release notes

Pixelmator

2007-06-07T00:22:00.000+01:00

"Pixelmator, the beautifully designed, easy-to-use, fast and powerful image editor for Mac OS X has everything you need to create, edit and enhance your images."

This really looks awesome - we have photoshop I know, but pixelmator looks to integrate into the osx ystem and add to the mac experience utilising automator, iphoto, isight and .mac for some features.

Take a look over at www.pixelmator.com

----------------------

Further information in their forums state it will cost $59 and there will be a Beta coming near the end of July.

Sign up to the newsletter to keep up to date with Pixelmator progress.

OpenLaszlo - Open Source Internet Application Development

2007-06-05T23:41:00.000+01:00

OpenLaszlo is an open-source platform for the development of rich internet applications

OpenLaszlo is an open source platform for creating zero-install web applications with the user interface capabilities of desktop client software.

OpenLaszlo programs are written in XML and JavaScript and transparently compiled to Flash and, with OpenLaszlo 4, DHTML. The OpenLaszlo APIs provide animation, layout, data binding, server communication, and declarative UI. An OpenLaszlo application can be as short as a single source file, or factored into multiple files that define reusable classes and libraries.

OpenLaszlo is "write once, run everywhere." An OpenLaszlo application developed on one machine will run on all leading Web browsers on all leading desktop operating systems.

Platform Demos

Cumulate Draw

2007-06-05T22:49:00.000+01:00

Want to do a little office arangement planning? or a kitchen layout even? Need to do some office or home network planning? Some quick flowchart work for the morning meeting? whichever it is and you don't have the right application to to any of this but have an internet connection and either Internet Explorer or Firefox then try Cumulate Draw

give it a whirl

In Pictures Computer Tutorials

2007-06-05T17:22:00.000+01:00

Totally free, nothing to pay or download tutorials on subjects including MySql, Php, CSS, Fireworks, Word, etc. Using the visual element to help people understand is mostly the best way to learn things I believe - a lot better than getting all confused with a text book - so head over to In Pictures website to check out the tutorials.

Shuffle - Flash Game

2007-06-05T14:23:00.000+01:00

Suffle

A pretty simple but good game, the premise being to knock your opponents (in this case the computer) pieces off the board to win the round. Lose 4 rounds and lose the game, but as you progress through the stages of the game you lose a piece from your set when you win a round.

Play

3 Totally Differenet But Possibly Usefull Freeware Apps

2007-06-05T09:56:00.000+01:00

POS/OE 4

POS/OE 4 is powerful business software offering features for performing point of sale/retail, mail-telephone order (MOTO), wholesale, distribution, ecommerce, inventory control, light manufacturing, accounting, credit card processing, and much more. It supports single user, multi-user, and multi-location systems.

Jobs

Jobs is an application to track your orders and jobs. Jobs can be synced with iCal and you can backup your data on .Mac. You can create notes for each client and you can allocate jobs to different projects. Jobs needs Mac OS X 10.4.8, for Sync you need iCal 2.0.4 and for backing up on an iDisk you need a valid .Mac Account. Thanks to A. Dodson.

Jer's Novel Writer

Jer's Novel Writer is a relatively simple word processor with extra features to support large creative writing projects.

I wrote this program to fit the way I write. More specifically, I wrote it to help overcome my shortcomings. It would be terribly presumptuous to think that anyone else out there faces the same obstacles I do when I write, but it would also be presumptuous to think that I was the only one in the world with these problems. So I offer what I created to make me a better writer, hoping that it will help others too.

Serge Seidlitz

2007-06-04T20:43:00.000+01:00

This is an excellent portfolio - some real nice work all through, only things i can drool at :)

Serge Seidlitz

Pixel Art

2007-06-04T20:08:00.001+01:00

Pixelmoon

Pixel art must take hours and hours to do, this is a colective piece with numerous artist - very nice it is too, made me laugh a few times.

Click the image too see the whole thing.

Manfred Klein Fonts

2007-06-03T22:38:00.000+01:00

Deconstr2007

DeconstructLightOblique

DeconstBlackOblique

Manfred Klein 2007

Keep Track Of Your Updates

2007-06-03T10:53:00.000+01:00

Install AppFresh on your osx 10.4 mac to keep an eye on all your application updates.

From the site:

AppFresh helps you to keep all applications (third-party and Apple), widgets, preference panes and application plugins on your Mac up to date, from one place. It works by checking the excellent iusethis.com for new versions and lets you download and install available updates easily.

Stormy Weather

2007-06-02T23:36:00.000+01:00

Damned Code

2007-06-02T21:39:00.000+01:00

I've got the post title links working finally to a point - I've had to hack the code up a bit but they now link to their relative pages, still having trouble figuring out why I can't get the a and a:hover to work.

But as long as the links actually work is good enough for the time being.

Edit: Yahoo, I did it :) fiddled with the css and html and we now have a hover colour change good good.

Daniel Bergmann - Nature Photographer

2007-06-02T09:55:00.000+01:00

This guy is great, some breath taking landscapes here and nature shots.

Daniel Bergmann Photography Gallery

Lightning

2007-06-01T14:43:00.000+01:00

The one thing i find totally awe inspiring over anything else is lightening, especially when photographs manage to capture it's natural terrifying beauty.

Profesional Photographs of Lightning

It's Killing Me...

2007-06-01T09:35:00.000+01:00

Anoter month, still no sign of me getting any luck in securing a job. All I do is apply and go for interviews (the ones i'm lucky to get) then wait for any further information. One company I went for an interview at about 4 weeks ago have just decided to tell me I didn't get through to a second interview with no reason and no feedback - didn't even bother to send me a letter, just told the recruitment office and let them inform me.

But I continue aplying, trouble is at this point everyones going on holiday - when you call up to enqire about the situaton the person dealing with it is on holiday. Fair enoght people have to go holiday but couldn't the recruitment drive be done while they aren't on holiday instead of starting it off with job advertisemnts then coming back to sift through the cv's, making us wait at least a week before anything is looked at.

More Free Quality Fonts 2

2007-05-31T14:57:00.000+01:00

More Free Quality Fonts

2007-05-31T14:14:00.000+01:00

If you go along to www.praegnanz.de there are a selection of very decent free fonts in his essay collection - see samples below.

and also if you go here within the same site, there is another nice selection - some dont work any more as the time has passed on them being "free" like the FF two.

AUdimat

Vollkorn

Retro Gaming - Nothing I like More

2007-05-31T13:39:00.000+01:00

Retrospec

Found this a while back, retro game conversions for pc and mac - things like

Exolon

and..

Head Over Heels

those two are awesome, and as hard as ever have it fom me :) there is a lot more for you pc guys than for mac but i think they are working on some more.

Store Those Passwords And Log-ins

2007-05-31T10:52:00.000+01:00

I think we al have too many passwords and log-ins to remember them all, we all forget right?
Come across KeyManager just now, by Cafeinasoft, and thought it was about time i used one of these applications to track my psswords - so why not this one.

KeyManager has password encryption, type manager and live search.

Create diferent types
Live Search field to fast search in KeyManager database
Backup function
Main Password to keep your data protected
Simple and intuitive interface
KeyManager interface is easy to learn and use.

Free Font - Faceplate™

2007-05-31T10:19:00.000+01:00

Hop on over to FontShop to pick up this great free font (thanks Toon :)) - you have to register but it's no hassle.

Faceplate™ A Gauge (PSY/OPS®)

Get a taste of the gentle curves and sensible functionality of Faceplate Sans by Rodrigo Xavier Cavazos. The lightest weight is free for a limited time.

Download free font:

Mac/PC OT

I'll Get Straight Into It Then...

2007-05-30T22:49:00.000+01:00

Starting off the freeware theme then, I just opened up Cool Osx Apps to find Time-Tracker. It's, well you guessed it, an application for time management on projects and i'm assuming it can come in handy in the office, at home and possibly most handy if you're a freelance designer type.

Time-Tracker is a mac osx application which is under the Google website there - other information on the application is available on links to i use this and versiontracker.

WOW! I might actually do this

2007-05-30T20:00:00.000+01:00

Here goes, I think I'm going to start my regular blog - after 3 attempted stop and starts that is :)
There's hopefully going to be more general posts but mostly I'll be posting on the topics of design, typography, photography, apple mac, osx and mac freeware (it's a past time :)) and really anyhing that grabs my attention enough to share with you guys and gals.

End.

so, the photography bug

2007-05-04T05:43:00.000+01:00

Yeah, like i think i got it. Sparked off by my weekend in Edinburgh, my happy snapping trip around as much of Edinburgh i could cover on foot over 3 days and taking just over 240 shots of the place, and so seen as i was still having no luck with jobs and to get myself outta the house i thought lets go for a walk around my home town area and take my camera and lets see what comes of it. Low and behold i create a flickr account - here i am and then create my own flash gallery to put up on my website (sort of) - my flash gallery - which is a matter of fact updated with my latest outing yesterday as is my flickr but i restrict myself - only 12 select photos on there of latest jaunt.

things to do to get employed

2007-05-04T00:10:00.001+01:00

So I went for an interview today yay! that's live 5 already :p Seems like a good place with good people - i't's real weird that i try NOT to get too enthusiastic about getting the job in order to NOT be too dissapointed if i don't get it, but at the same time you have to be enthusiastic i the interview as you actually WANT to get the job - sheesh!

So, it was over in newcastle and it would be a huge opportunity to move out of my parents on my own at last :D plus it has a supermaret handy right in amonst the housing estate - nice places to go for walks and all, PLUS it's shift work - days and nights like means days off yeah!

Just thought i'd share some news :)

2007-05-04T00:10:00.000+01:00

new creative and design forum

2007-05-04T00:07:00.000+01:00

This place is worth joining for sure, just got invited other day (isn't that nice of them :)) - looking good so far. So head over and take a look and join in the fun

digging around

2007-03-18T18:12:00.000Z

I was digging around the other day serching freeware and open-souce stuff, i was looking for something inparticular in a cd collection lbrary application but failing to do so. I did however find a few applications that were a suprise quite frankly and thought that they may be of use to some people.

First off in the open-source bin we have Books which is book cataloging application to keep track of your library (requires OSX 10.4).

Secondly we have Cashbox a personal finance management application (requires OSX 10.4).

This one might prove a little tricky, i'm not sure but the instructions seem pretty straightforward and Home Media Librarian is a java application that uses MySQL database. It does what is says on the tin, catalogue your cd's, dvd's, records or music collection.

Now two freeware apps - eBook Library is an application developed to help you practice speed reading.

Luca is a fully featured and fully functional accounting application - snap it up, awesome freeware (requires OSX 10.4 Tiger)

IceClean

2007-03-14T18:20:00.000Z

posted on Mac Beginners

Ok, 10.4.9 system update is out - if you didn't know check your "software update" now, as recommended on osxhints you should restart twice and do a permisions repair after the update and this should make all well. The first reboot may take a few minutes longer than usual, just thought i'd make you aware.

Now to the point of my post, now that you have updated to 10.4.9 your copy of MainMenu 1.7 wil not work and you will have to wait until 1.8 is released - "so, how do i repair my permissions then?" i hear you ask, well there is of course Disk Utility in the "Utilities" folder amongst your applications but - and here the main point of the post - i had seen stuff on this freeware application called IceClean.

IceClean is a system optimization and maintenance tool which utilises the built in unix system tasks to help keep your mac perky

finally.... (so you're like thinking "rock" from wwe, well don't :))

2007-03-09T19:02:00.000Z

Like wow, like damn, like yehaw, yoohoo, w00t and YES! I got me an interview and everyone is like congratulation, well done, great - but it's only an interview i ain't god the job yet , it's a step yes and at least it's into a company that is doing well and is secure unlike other companies i've worked for (or never got to as the case may be) but interview at last and i am happy i have an interview at least but sorry, you wont see me jumping up and down in excitement because i have an interview. Well lets hope i can secure the job, god knows i need one :D

2007-03-07T08:31:00.000Z

A map of the US states i have visited

create your own visited states map

Sleep Naked!

2007-03-07T08:22:00.000Z

"Not only is sleeping naked more comfortable, but it's good for your health too."

what fruit may bare....

2007-03-05T03:31:00.000Z

So i'm just finishing off an application form for a job in Edinburgh - in fact it's all ready to go tomorrow just need to get an envelope to put it in and stick said address on, then off it goes see if anything comes of it "i can but try". For the multitude of jabs i have applied for over the month of february i am desperate for some post to come through the door telling me either way "interview" or "thank you for your interest..." tis frustrating to say the least this job searching then to have companies drag their heels and then change their job descriptions too.